Pharrell Williams

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Biography

Pharrell Williams (born 05.04.73) is an American music producer, singer-songwriter and rapper. He is one half of the production duo The Neptunes and is also the lead singer and drummer of the funk-rock band, N*E*R*D.

Net Worth: According to Celebrity Net Worth in 2014, Pharrell Williams has a net worth of 80 million USD.

Childhood: Pharrell Williams was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to handyman Pharaoh and teacher Carolyn Williams. While in the seventh grade, Williams met Chad Hugo during a summer band camp. The two also were both part of a marching band. Williams studied at Princess Anne High School where he was part of the school band.

Williams and Hugo formed The Neptunes as a four-piece band with two of their friends. The group performed at Princess Anne High School for a talent contest and, as producer Teddy Riley had a studio next door, were offered a contract.

Career: Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo began making a name for themselves as a production duo using the name of their old band, The Neptunes. The Neptunes produced a series of successful songs, yet their breakthrough came in 2001, when they produced the Britney Spears song 'I'm a Slave 4 U', which became the production duo's first worldwide chart-topper. In that same year, Williams and Hugo's band N*E*R*D (which also contained one of the other two members from their band The Neptunes) released the album 'In Search of...' on 28th September 2001, to rave reviews.

This was followed by 'The Neptunes Present...Clones' the following year, which featured a series of remixes and shot to the top of the Billboard Album chart. On 23rd March 2004, N*E*R*D released 'Fly or Die', which received exceedingly positive reviews all round. At the 2004 Grammy Awards, Williams receieved the awards for both 'Producer of the Year, Non-Classical', and 'Best Pop Vocal Album', the latter of which was for an appearance on Justin Timberlake's album 'Justified'. In 2004, Williams made an appearance on Snoop Dog's 'Drop It Like It's Hot', which became his first US chart-topping single.

The Neptunes continued to produce music and remixes for a variety of artists. In July, 2010, Pharell Williams composed the musical score for the movie 'Despicable Me'. In October of the same year, N*E*R*D supported Gorillaz on their world tour before releasing 'Nothing' on 2nd November 2010. Unlike other N*E*R*D releases, 'Nothing' only received moderate critical praise and failed to rise above number 21 on Billboard's 200 list.

In 2012, Williams worked with Hans Zimmer once again (after 'Despicable Me') on the music for the 84th Academy Awards that year. The following year, Williams contributed his vocals to the Daft Punk hit single 'Get Lucky', before writing and producing Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' - both of which became chart-topping singles. In December 2013, Williams was nominated for seven Grammy Awards, and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 'Happy' from the 'Despicable Me 2' soundtrack.

The song lost, however, to 'Frozen''s 'Let It Go'.

Personal Life: Pharrell Williams and his long-term girlfriend, Helen Lasichanh, had a son, Rocket, in November 2008. On 12th October, 2013, Williams and Lasichanh were married. In the 'Despicable Me' soundtrack, the song 'Rocket's Theme' was dedicated to Williams' son.

Robin Thicke will have to pay a little less to the family of Marvin Gaye over his hit ‘Blurred Lines’.

Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams have received a little bit of good news regarding their ‘Blurred Lines’ copyright case, after a judge trimmed more than $2 million from the damages the duo were ordered to pay to the family of Marvin Gaye.

Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines will now cost him $2 million less.

On July 14th US district judge John A Kronstadt ruled that $2 million should be cut from the $7.4 million total which had been decided on back in March, bringing the sum down to $5.3 million. Kronstadt said that he had made the reducTIon as the original award was not supported by the evidence.

From Puff Daddy, otherwise known as P.Diddy, comes the single 'Finna Get Loose' featuring Pharrell Williams. The result of these two globally famous artists collaborating promises to make this song immensely popular in the near future.

Heard as the leading track to Apple's debut advertisement for their Beats 1 radio service, 'Freedom' is the latest single from Pharrell Williams, which he performed on his international 2015 tour including his Glastonbury performance.

The 38 year old R&B star achieved worldwide fame for his 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’, which was the biggest selling single in the world that year. However, that fame slowly turned to notoriety, after the song’s lyrics were accused of being “rape-y” and was the subject of a multi-million dollar copyright infringement case that found that Thicke and collaborator Pharrell Williams had ripped off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up’.

Sheppard might be yet to gain significant attention in the US and UK, but they're becoming serious superstars in their home nation of Australia. The Brisbane six-piece shot to number one with their multi-Platinum single 'Geronimo' last year, and even managed to knock down Pharrell Williams' record-breaking hit 'Happy'.

Sheppard apologize for Pharrell victory

Needless to say, the band were, indeed, very happy when they discovered that they had beaten the pop giant to the top of the chart in Australia, and even more so when their independent debut album 'Bombs Away' reached number two. They remain, however, contrite that Pharrell's opportunity to break yet another record was snatched from him.

It's perhaps fitting that my prevailing memory of this year's Isle of Wight Festival will be guitars. This was after all the 45th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's legendary performance on the Island, something that was being widely celebrated by festival organiser John Giddings and his team across the site. Fender, for example, brought some specially designed guitars to the party for artists including You Me At 6 to play, and there was also a world record attempt for the most number of people in one place to be wearing a mask, the face in question was naturally Hendrix himself. Despite that backdrop, it was some of the guitarists who played across the weekend that demonstrated the power of the instrument and reinforced that guitar based rock isn't on its last legs as some have speculated over the past few years.

The festival got into full swing with a Stones-esque swagger on Friday afternoon when The Struts took to the Main Stage. Their enthusiasm signalled a continuation of their set from the previous year's festival, indeed they are an ideal opening act when you want to energise a crowd. Their appearance at Download the following day, will no doubt have had a similar effect. There seemed to be a Rolling Stones theme to many of the acts getting the festival underway. Over in the Big Top The Ruen Brothers covered 'Miss You' during their rousing set that was well received.

The first moment that sent a shiver down my spine this year was the Counting Crows though. The guitar line to 'Round Here' sent a wave of excitement across the main arena. It was a strong opening statement in a nine song set that featured the likes of 'Mr Jones', 'Miami', and 'Rain King' into which singer Adam Duritz dropped some Elbow lyrics as a nod of the hat to Guy Garvey. If Counting Crows' guitars weren't haunting enough, it was actually The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach whose riffs were the most powerful and elemental of the day. The dirty Blues grit of Auerbach's playing was like a roll of thunder that saw the heavens open to drench the crowd in torrential rain. While much of the set was dedicated to material culled from 'El Camino' and 'Brothers', rather than recent record 'Turn Blue', the band's graduation to a headlining slot was well deserved and warranted. The final song of the set 'Little Black Submarines', which builds from a delicate solo performance to a dramatic climax, utilised every trick in the book for The Black Keys' expanded touring band. If Patrick Carney's drums and Auerbach's guitars are the perfect union on record, it seems their live shows rightly now have the power to command top billing with the inclusion of bassist Richard Swift and keyboardist John Clement Wood.

The mysterious, hit making duo known as Daft Punk might soon be lifting their helmets ever so slightly in a new documentary titled, ‘Daft Punk Unchained’. Made by BBC Worldwide France, the doc is the first to made about the group, who have been shrouded in secrecy since their formation in 1993.

‘Daft Punk Unchained’ will air June 24th.

Directed by Hervé Martin Delpierre and co-written with Marina Rozenma, ‘Unchained’ will tell the story of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, aka Daft Punk, using archival interview footage from 1996 to 2013 and "rare documents”.

Performing on the Honda Stage at the iHeartRadio Theater in Los Angeles, Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams do a live rendition of 'So Many Pros' from Snoop's funk-filled US R&B chart topping new album 'Bush'.

The past meets the future in the video for Snoop Dogg's funk-infused latest single 'California Roll', featuring Pharrell Williams and Stevie Wonder. The track appears on his new album 'Bush', which topped the US R&B chart.

What happens when you take Pharrell, Snoop Dog, Snoop's favourite medication, and Stevie Wonder? A crazy story - that's what!

With Snoop Dog's 'Bush' set to hit shelves on 12th May 2015, Snoop and the record's producer, Pharrell Williams, took some time to give an interview about the creation of some of the tracks from the album. One of the main topics of conversation, however, turned out to be how they got Stevie Wonder to appear on the song 'California Role', and how the two musicians reacted to his arrival.

'California Role' was released on 5th May 2015

Pharrell originally played the song 'California Role' while the two were recording the album in Miami, apparently because it was a song he had made that had never made it onto an album. Snoop knew he couldn't rap over the song, so he reached out to a friend of his to write some lyrics for him, before he realised that the song was calling out for Stevie Wonder.